054 – A Man’s Personal Honor - a podcast by Alf Herigstad

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A MAN’S PERSONAL HONOR…
Today we are discussing a word that is often used; sometimes correctly sometimes not.  I think it’s a word that is not that well understood in general.  The word is ‘honor’.So what is honor, and how does it apply to our mission of being a better man?  What does it mean to live with honor…to be an honorable man?  These are the questions I will answer in this episode.
Like many english words, honor is used in a few different ways.  One way is when it is used to bestow respect or admiration for something someone did well, or to acknowledge someone for performing well and meeting their obligations. For example; a building can be named in honor of a Cities founder.  A football team that performs well is said to bring honor to the school.  It was an honor to be invited to your wedding.  Someone can graduate with honors or leave the military with an honorable discharge.
While these are all proper uses of the word…it’s not exactly what I am taking about today.  The kind of honor I am talking about today is much more personal and individual, its more specific. The phrase; “to live with honor” implies that there is a code or list of rules to follow.  While the phrase; “he is an honorable man” implies that honor is a matter of reputation that is earned.  Both of these are correct…honor is both of these things, but it isn’t ONLY these things.  The word honor is a simple noun but the word honor as I am applying it today is also a complex concept with many components.
Honor is a complex composition of things that includes your earned reputation as a man.  It is also a personal code that you design and live by and in so doing preserve that reputation.  Truth and courage are also major components of honor because you cannot accomplish all this without them. Other components of honor are more internal.  Honor is a deep abiding commitment to one’s self that you will live and react and interact with others in a way that is consistent with what you believe in the core of your being. 
At times it takes great courage to do this; you also must be truthful with yourself at all times in order to pull this off.   Honor does not thrive…it cannot exist in the presence of excuses or weakness of character.Honor is that unseen force that makes you stand behind the things you say and keep your word no matter what. It makes you remember promises, and causes you to treat others as you would like to be treated.  Your honor compels you to do the right thing even when no one else would know.
I’m really just scratching the surface here, but in my opinion these are the primary components of personal honor.  I think of it like something I possess, as though it is part of me like my heart or my liver.  Like I take all of these components and I put them in a bag and I keep that bag inside of me like an internal organ.  And just like any other internal organ my behavior and lifestyle will determine its health and good function, or lack thereof.It might sound kind of woo woo to some people, but I find it helpful to visualize things like this because then instead of an abstract idea I can see this organ functioning in my minds eye.  I know whats inside the bag because I put them there, and I have a responsibility to ensure that my honor remains healthy and functioning.
However you keep track of it, we have identified the kind of personal honor that we are talking about today.  We have determined what the primary components are.  The next question is how does honor relate to the mission of being a better man today than we were yesterday?Actually I think it’s really obvious how honor relates to being a better man, it’s really just common sense…but I’ll go over it anyway.
I’ll illustrate that point by suggesting that you imagine the opposite:Imagine a man who has not earned a reputation as a good man, a man who has no personal code of conduct,

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